


Love is the thread that ties us together

by Daughter_of_the_TARDIS



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s11e06 Demons of the Punjab, F/F, Fluff, Space Wives, Weddings, gallifreyan weddings, the doctor loves her wife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-26 00:55:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16671697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daughter_of_the_TARDIS/pseuds/Daughter_of_the_TARDIS
Summary: “Umbreen's wedding -” she said abruptly, once they made it back to the TARDIS.  “It reminded me of a Gallifreyan handfastin’.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know I said that the next thing I would post would be 13/River, with the prompt 'oncoming storm'... but this popped into my head and I couldn't stop myself.

They were halfway back to the TARDIS when the Doctor spoke up. It had been obvious that there was something on her mind since they left Yas’s family, but her friends had long since learned that the easiest way to get information out of the Time Lord was to let her talk about it in her own time. She had been trailing behind them, running her fingertips over the fields of flowers, a small, nostalgic smile on her face as she followed her friends.

“Umbreen's wedding -” she said abruptly, once they made it back to the TARDIS. “It reminded me of a Gallifreyan handfastin’.”

Her friends looked at each other in surprise - the Doctor rarely talked about her past, unless it was to tell them a story about the trouble that she had gotten into with one historical figure or another. But it was even rarer for her to tell them about her planet. The only time that she had mentioned it before was when Yas had asked her what her home was like. Then she had told them a bit - about Gallifrey and red fields, silver forests and twin suns that made the mountains glow. “What's that - a handfasting?” Graham asked, watching as she opened up the TARDIS doors, letting them all inside.

“A wedding ceremony.” she said, walking inside and smiling as the console room lit up around them. “Nothing like the big stuffy one that they made me do - those were long and boring and nothing but politics. They didn’t even have the handfastin’ - just a contract.” she wrinkled her nose as she said it, like the idea offended her.

Yas looked at her in surprise - both that the Doctor was married and that she was talking about it. “Did you ever do that - the handfasting, I mean. Like Umbreen did.” 

The Doctor nodded. “Oh yeah, I've done both of them - the boring one and the real one. Only we didn’t use rope for the handfastin’ - used somethin’ else.” she said vaguely. She worked to keep her tone casual, but Yas had been trained at the police academy before meeting the Doctor, and had been good at reading people before that. She caught the hitch in the other woman’s voice, and the way that her grip on the console tightened. The fingers of her left hand brushed over her throat, and it took a moment before she looked at any of them.

“You're married?” Ryan asked, and Yas had to work to keep from laughing at the shock on her friend’s face. Even without looking at Graham, she knew that he had a similar expression on his face. Not that she blamed him - she was probably making the exact same face. The Doctor was as alien as they came - marriage was something that they had never really thought of her being involved in. But then she remembered what the Time Lord had told them shortly after they met - that she had had a family, but lost them all.

The Doctor just smiled knowingly, like she knew what they were all thinking already. It was strange how she always seemed to do that - there were times when Yasmin wondered if the Doctor was telepathic or something, but she still had yet to ask the question. “Don't seem the type, do I?” she asked. “But yeah, I was.”

“Not really.” Ryan admitted, saying what they were all thinking. But the Doctor didn’t seem offended - if anything, she seemed to agree. But there was a tiny smile on her face that seemed to speak volumes.

Her next words were so quiet that they almost didn’t hear what she said. “She was more than worth it, though.”

“Who was she?” Yas asked, her natural curiosity winning out over her desire to let her friend have her privacy. “I mean, what was she like?”

“I always thought she was perfectly mad - eye for trouble, a brain that never stopped workin’, and could get herself in and out of trouble better than anyone else. But she had a heart of gold and a wicked sense of humor.” the TARDIS hummed just a little bit louder, her lights glowing just a bit brighter, and the Doctor pulled a face at the ceiling. “Not to mention the TARDIS always loved her best.” she muttered.

But Graham caught the careful way the Doctor worded what she said. “What did other people think she was like?” 

A mischievous smile crossed her face even as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Hell.” she said, her words ominous despite her nostalgia. “In high heels.” her hands ran over the TARDIS console for a moment, and then she turned to look at them, a wide smile on her face and the ghosts from her past gone from her eyes. “Speakin’ of heels, there’s a whole planet where you have to walk on stilts. Imagine that - what if you only had one leg? What if you were really bad at balancin’?” she told them, eyes flashing with excitement at the thought of someplace new. “What d’you think - want to check it out?”

Ryan was the first to nod, although he looked nervous about trying stilts with his dyspraxia. But either way, the Doctor was already talking a mile a minute about the planet and their fascination with stilts, racing around the console to pilot them there. The entire time, she was telling them all about the planet they were going to.

It took her friends hours to even realize that she had changed the subject on them - long after they had left the planet of the stilt-walkers. After that, she never brought it up again.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time that anyone mentioned the Doctor’s wife was when the woman herself brought it up nearly a month later. Or at least, they assumed that a month had passed. Time was funny when you were travelling in a TARDIS - what felt like days could be anything from minutes to years.

They had found themselves locked in cells underneath Henry III’s palace in 13th century England, with no sonic to help them get out of the situation - it had been confiscated by the guards who had found them. The Doctor was in a corner, sitting on her coat that she had spread out like a blanket underneath her. She had spread out bits and pieces that she had pulled out of her pockets on top of the coat, trying to put together some sort of machine to help them escape. Yas was watching her curiously from her seat, while Ryan and Graham looked on the best they could from their cell across the hall.

“How are we gonna get out of here?” Ryan asked. His voice echoed off the bare walls, bouncing around the damp cells. The guards posted had long since stopped trying to get them to be quiet, after threatening her friends had brought out the Doctor’s protective nature.

“Ah - not sure yet.” the Doctor admitted, barely looking up from what she was working on. Don't worry, I'll think of somethin’. Probably.”

“Luckily for you, you won't have to.” A voice answered, throaty with a hint of danger that made Yas instinctively reach for her police-issued baton. The voice rang around the prison, and the Doctor’s head shot up. She looked as though she had just heard a ghost, but had a look in her eyes like she had just seen a star being born. Yas looked at her in confusion before turning in the direction that the voice was coming from - Graham and Ryan were already on their feet, staring at the woman who had just appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the hallway. “Hello sweetie.”

The woman standing there with her fingers curled around the prison bars was a mass of curves and curls, with a gun strapped to one hip and an outfit that was definitely not from the time period that they were in. All three of the humans in the cells braced themselves, waiting for the Doctor to react to the gun like she had with every other weapon that they had run into since they started traveling with her. Even as she waited, though, Yas couldn’t help but wonder where the woman had come from - she hadn’t been there seconds ago, and the door that led upstairs to the rest of the castle hadn’t been opened. 

But instead of reacting to the strange woman with a gun in a normal manner, a wide smile crossed the Doctor’s face and she waved, looking slightly relieved. “Hello!” she said, looking ecstatic just to be in the same room as the other woman. It was as adorable as it was strange - the Doctor had never looked this besotted before, not even when she saw the TARDIS for the first time.

The woman cocked a hip, smirking at the Doctor in a manner that was far too predatory for any of her friends’ liking. “Look at you.” She purred, green eyes sparkling with mischief. “So adorable this time around.”

The Doctor blushed. “D'you think so?” she asked, smiling shyly. She tucked a lock of hair back behind her ear, fiddling with the piercing there. No matter how many centuries they had been married, it was still nice to hear that her wife thought she was attractive.

“Sorry - do you two know each other or somethin’?” Ryan asked, interrupting the moment between them. Graham looked at him, silently asking how he couldn’t already tell that.

“Sorry - fam, this is my wife. River, this is the fam.” she introduced, then turned to look at her wife, a warning in her eyes. “Be nice - don’t flirt, you might kill them.” It was only after she saw the confused looks on her friends’ faces that she realized her words might not make sense. “The first time she flirted with me, I nearly had an aneurysm.” she explained, as if such a thing was completely ordinary. “And Time Lords don’t get aneurysms!”

The woman - River - smiled at them all. “Lovely to meet you all - wish it was under better circumstances.” she said. “But unfortunately with this one this is about as good as the circumstances get.” she teased. The Doctor looked offended for a split second, before realizing that what the other woman said was completely accurate.

“Why’s your wife in a prison?” Ryan asked, and Yas was quick to pick up on the questions. 

“How’d she get into the prison, anyway?” she asked. “I didn’t hear anyone come in.”

“Too many reasons to count.” the Doctor said cheerfully in response to Ryan, ignoring the other questions. She finally putting down what she was working on, tucking her hair behind her ear and leaving a smudge of grease on her cheek. “But this time she’s in prison to hopefully break us out.” She climbed to her feet, leaving her coat on the floor as she made her way over to the bars. “River Song, my bad girl. What’re you doing here?”

The other woman didn’t even seem phased by the greeting, instead reaching through the bars to rub at the grease on the Doctor’s cheek, her immaculately polished nails contrasting with the Time Lord’s skin. “I got your distress call.” she replied.

Her face scrunched up in confusion, but she quickly dismissed it - rarely anything in her relationship with River Song was linear, and this time was no different. “Haven’t sent one - I’ll add it to the list.” 

The bit of laughter that she got for that statement was enough to make her hearts beat faster. “There’s a list now?” River teased, and the Doctor pressed herself against the bars, wishing that she could figure out a way to squeeze through.

“So are you gonna let us out, then?” Graham asked, and the Doctor scowled. Her blonde hair flew as she moved to look around her wife.

“Ruinin’ the moment, Graham!” she hissed.

But River just laughed, pulling away from the bars to move over to Ryan and Graham’s cell. “Of course.” she reassured the man. Pulling a set of lock picks out of one of her pockets, she quickly bent down, fiddling with the lock. It only took her a few moments before the door swung open, and then she came back over to the other side, fiddling for a moment before that door swing open as well.

“Come on then, you lot.” she urged. “Let’s stage a prison escape.”


	3. Chapter 3

They were halfway back to the TARDIS when the Doctor turned to look at her wife. Of course, she had been doing that since the other woman showed up, but this time she actually said something.

“Oh - I almost forgot.” she said, leaning up to press a kiss to her wife’s lips, frowning at the fact that now she was shorter than her wife. That was something else that she had been doing - it was the third time that she had done that since they first escaped the cell - not that her friends minded. It was slowing them down a bit, but she looked so happy every time that her friends couldn't help but let her slow them down as they were running for their lives. “I want to get married again.”

Again?” River asked, even as a small smile curved across her face. She led the way down the corridor, her hand slipping into her wife’s as they made their way back to the TARDIS. “I’m starting to think you’re just in it for the honeymoon.”

Graham choked slightly at the innuendo, and even Ryan and Yas paused when the Doctor responded. “It’s an added bonus.” she admitted.

By that point, the TARDIS was in sight, but the pair were too busy talking to notice. “What number are we on now?” the Doctor asked, keeping her fingers laced with River’s as they walked. “I think my last count is 103.”

“I think it was…” she paused for a second, doing the mental math. “three-hundred and seven. Not including that time loop that we got stuck in.”

River smiled, remembering the time loop fondly. It had taken them nearly a month to solve, but for the first twenty-nine days they hadn’t even bothered trying.

“Three hundred and seven what?” Ryan asked, looking confused.

“Weddings.” the shorter blonde answered, looking at her wife hopefully, her question written in her eyes.

But the quick response of her wife was enough to make the Doctor’s face fall. “Oh no.” River said, shaking her head, her curls bouncing everywhere. But when she saw just how disappointed her wife was - and how hard she worked to hide that disappointment - she was quick to amend her “I’m not getting married without my wedding ring, honey.”

The Doctor scoffed. “That’s easy.” she said, letting go of her wife’s hand. She reached into one of the pockets of her coat, digging around for a moment before she pulled out a thin strip of fabric, maybe a foot in length. None of the humans knew what it was, but by the awed look on the other woman’s face, it was important.

“You kept it.” River’s voice was low, wavering slightly - like she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She looked at her wife with the slightest hint of confusion on her face - like she didn’t quite understand what was going on.

“Of course I kept it.” her voice was soft, soft enough that her friends had to strain to hear what she was saying. “Like you said - its our wedding ring.”

“You nostalgic idiot.” River said, a slow smile spreading across her face as she wrapped the fabric around her hand in a well-practiced motion. Ryan and Yas both wanted to ask about it, but Graham stopped them with a look - now wasn’t the time for questions.

They fell into a comfortable silence as the Doctor opened up the TARDIS - her being parked in the dungeons was the reason that they had been thrown in prison in the first place. The guards had heard the sound of the ship landing, and had thought that they were attacking. Of course, it didn’t help that the timeship had just appeared out of thin air like she did - that was what had led to them being thrown in cells and scheduled for execution on charges of witchcraft.

The TARDIS seemed to glow even brighter around them as soon as River entered the ship, letting out a pleased hum. The woman laughed, throwing her head back and curls flying as she smiled at the ceiling. “Hello to you too!” she said, closing her eyes and tilting her head to one side as if she was listening to something that only she could hear. Her feet carried her to the console even though her eyes were still closed, listening to the way the TARDIS hummed.

That was when Ryan nudged her, pointing at River’s hand, running over the controls in the same way that the Doctor did. Or, she quickly realized, not her hand - but what was around her wrist. A wide leather strap sat there, slightly bulky on one part where the controls were located.

“Hang on, that’s a vortex manipulator - like Krasko had.” Yas said, pointing out what they were all thinking. 

River wrinkled her nose. “Krasko?” she asked, her disgust coming through in the way she said his name, a shiver running through her. “I remember him from Stormcage - I believe I threatened to eviscerate him the last time that we met.” Graham looked alarmed at the matter-of-fact way that she said it, but the Doctor just looked even more besotted.

“We ran into him - he was trying to stop Rosa.” the Doctor explained.

River’s head tilted to one side, her curls falling into her face. “Rosa?” she asked, and Yas spoke up, making the Doctor jump - she had forgotten that anyone else was even there. 

“Rosa Parks.”

River whirled around to face her, a look of pure shock on the woman’s face. “Rosa Parks? Really?” she asked, intrigued.

“Hang on.” The Doctor narrowed her eyes. “you’re more surprised that we met Rosa than you are that I’m a woman.”

River rolled her eyes. “I studied you, Doctor. Do you really think that no one wrote about the time when the Doctor was a woman?” she smiled, tucking a lock of hair behind her wife’s ear. “But what I really want to talk about is this wedding we’re apparently planning.”

That caught the Doctor’s attention. “Where are we havin’ it this time, dear?” she asked, bounding around the console to be at her wife’s side.

“Calderon Beta?” River suggested, but the Doctor shook her head.

“Three-hundred an’ one.”

“Gliese 581g?”

“Number fifty-three.”

River perked up slightly when she thought of her next idea. “Ooh, we could do a ceremony with that tribe that we met - the one on Sevateem.” she suggested, but the Doctor was already shaking her head.

“They banned us from ever returning after you seduced the chieftain's daughter, remember?”

River didn’t have even an ounce of shame, nodding as she conceded the point. “And you seduced his husband.” she reminded her wife.

The Doctor looked at her friends with wide-eyed innocence. “It was an accident!” she protested.

Her wife sighed, crossing her arms over her chest as she leaned back against the console. “OK, well what about that planet with the tie-dyed fields?”

“Graendi - number two-hundred an’ three.”

“Ealing?” 

“Nah.” her nose scrunched as she shook her head. “Weddin’ number four, at Bannerman.”

Yas broke into their back-and-forth, cutting off River’s next suggestion. “How do you remember all that?” she asked, looking amazed.

But the Doctor just shrugged, looking like it was no big deal. “I remember all our weddings.”

The humans watched the two women in shock - this was a new side to the Doctor, one that they had never seen before. She seemed slightly calmer, like just the mere presence of the other woman was enough to steady her.

She lit up as she moved around the console, pressing buttons and flipping levers and stealing the occasional glance at her wife, as if she still couldn’t believe that the other woman was standing in front of her. “Right then.” she said, her hand resting on the hourglass that would send the TARDIS hurtling through the Time Vortex. “Let’s get married.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every wedding destination listed is a reference to the show - including places where they're banned from getting married. If you can figure them all out, put your answers in the comments. Whoever does can request any fic that they want :)


End file.
